Narcissistic Personality Disorder: What Causes It, and How Does It Affect You? AKA 129

inquire all those questions you've always wanted to know ask katie anything hey everybody welcome back to another episode of ask katie anything i'm your host licensed marriage and family therapist katie morton i am so glad that you're here if you could share this podcast with someone else or leave a review that really helps i appreciate each and every one of you without further ado let's jump into your questions now the first question asks hey kati what tips do you have for moving back in with your parents or family i'm 21 and i love living on my own my therapist and i agree that my mental health depression and anxiety is a lot better when i'm on my own away from family now that my circumstances warrant me moving back in what can i do to make this transition better and ensure that my mental health doesn't worsen thanks now i love this question because for a lot of different reasons we can feel forced to move back in usually it's financial um if we don't have to if there's a way to save up money or to get a roommate and move somewhere else i highly highly encourage you to do that because if we know moving back in is going to make things worse let's take some action to try to prevent that from happening but i also understand that not everybody has that option so what do we do if we have to if we feel like we have to the best advice i have is to limit your time at home with your family and when you are home it's okay to go in your room and shut the door having those boundaries around the time spent will minimize the effects that it can have on us if your family's open to it i think it's also helpful and i encourage people to have conversations with our family about what's okay or not okay and i don't mean like pretending that we're the best and we never do things that upset each other but coming into it and saying you know now that i'm moving back and i'm an adult like we should talk about maybe some of our ground rules like because your parents are probably going to have some too you're an adult you are used to coming and going as you please do they have any rules about having people over or when you need to be home or is there anything around that we should probably talk about that and then also you can talk about what your limits are like you know um i'll always do dinner on my own i'll let you know if i don't plan on it or you know just the logistics of living together it is tricky moving back when we're an adult because we're not a kid anymore and our parents can still treat us like we are and even moving back home we can sometimes like revert back into acting like teenage us and so we want to kind of mitigate that and prepare for it and i really think expressing like figuring out in therapy what your healthy boundaries are with your family does that mean that again like i said we minimize the amount of time we spend just like hanging out watching tv with them that might be triggering might be upsetting might give him opportunities to like throw out snide comments i'm not sure what the issues are it also you know we might want to start saving up so we can move out on our own like if hopefully this can just be temporary but also what rules and guidelines did they have so that we can so we can work well together because a lot of times i find that we can feel like we're the ones that are right and they're the ones that are wrong and while parents and family can be shitty and be hurtful we have to clean our own side of the street so we have to show up we have to ask so that we can do our part so that maybe some of that anxiety doesn't occur maybe that like walking on eggshells feeling can be you know managed beforehand but through communication obviously i do want to you know acknowledge that not everyone's family can hear that and not everyone's family can like show up and try to make things better but we at least want to give them the option or the opportunity to surprise us right and so try to have a conversation talk about what it's going to be like what rules there are like i remember when i came home it was my freshman year of college i came home for christmas it was like a three-week break and we my mom and i just butted heads about everything because i didn't have a curfew in college i came and went and as i pleased i slept in however much i want i did what i wanted right and then she was like you can't be coming and going all you can't do that and so we got it was like difficult and so then the next year or not even the next year when i was coming back first summer i talked to her i was like hey i don't want it to be like it was before so like what rules can we put in place and she's like be home by one you know try to be quiet when you get home nobody can be over at that time you know it was like just us setting some boundaries around what was okay if you're not gonna come home let me know ahead of time not like don't call in the middle of the night you know not that i was doing that but just like us setting up some basic parameters around what's okay and what's not okay so that we can live together again because again like i said you've been doing things on your own they've been doing things on their own and we have to figure out how to come back together and not make it incredibly difficult and not make us all feel worse and so communication is key again that's taken into consideration or i guess assuming that they can if they can't you have to figure out what's good for you and you have to take action to make sure that happens and that could be like not coming home until later telling them that you won't always be home for dinner and you'll let them know if they can expect you you know to be you communicating what's okay what's not okay so that we at the very least are expressing what what our boundaries are hope that makes sense now there was a comment on this in addition what if i never left i'm buried deep in trauma healing childhood emotional neglect my mom's ex-husband was emotionally abusive etc and i feel like i'm finally making progress but i still live at home and i know being around my mother i suspect she has npd and my therapist agrees and mpd stands for narcissistic personality disorder but um they agree and it's going to make it harder to heal unfortunately it's not possible for me to move out i feel like i'm doing a decent job setting boundaries but my mom is disabled and requires some care it's hard not to feel resentful when i'm asked to care for her in ways that she never cared for me any thoughts on how to navigate this oh that is tricky and of course it's triggering right because essentially you're doing things for her that like you never got and that's part of what your healing is and if that's something that you're going to have to care for because part of me there's a part of me that's like i really want you to start saving up and i want you to move out i knew you said it's not possible for you to move out i would always put in right now and as soon as you can i would i really do not encourage i know that i'm just going to say this i know it's not always people aren't always going to agree but it's not on you to care for your mom you have the right as a fully grown adult as a person who can do what they need to do hopefully you're an adult i guess i didn't say they're an adult but once you're 18 you have every right to leave and your mom will have to figure out her own care just like other people do in this world a lot of us who have any disability you know we have to set up our care whether that means we have someone coming over whether that means we go into a home whether that means you know we have our physical therapist show up or our occupational therapist and we have people coming and going to assist us i encourage you to find put together a plan for you to get out of there now in the meantime while you're stuck essentially i think the best way to navigate this situation is to as much as possible lessen the time that you spend with your mom i know that you have to care for her in certain things minimize that like just do the bare minimum of what's required for her health and safety and then we need to i'd assume in therapy you're doing some of this but i just have to put it out there in order for you to heal we're going to have to do some of that inner child work and i think that's kind of what's coming up for you right now because you're offering her care and love and support that she never offered to you and so part of my encouragement to you would be to offer some of that care and love and support to younger you to get back in touch with little you now if that doesn't feel safe in this moment again we didn't make a plan to get the hell out of there and then when we're we're at a place that's not so triggering all the time we can engage in this work but i think that that's really gonna move your healing forward that's gonna be what you need in order to to to fully heal from what the you know the abuse you sustained as a child and so yeah and glad you're setting boundaries i think that's like the good place to start but again you're not responsible for your mother i know people might be upset about me saying that but i find this sounds terrible also but that responsibility that you should not have could be a reason to hold you in this abusive relationship until she passes away and that's not okay we don't have to sustain that like i said she can go into a home or she can get other support depending on there's tons of things that if they're in this if you're in the states medicare medical that like federal programs cover i know care in the home can be something that insurance covers but i know federal stuff doesn't always cover all of it so finding a way to make that work could be so beneficial for you and yes i know you're like but i should and numb her daughter and blah blah again she didn't offer you the care and support and if it's hurtful and abusive and triggering for you to still be in that relationship it is okay to remove yourself you're not responsible for her but she's responsible for her and sure you can assist in getting her the care that she needs that would be lovely of you but you do have every right to remove yourself from that relationship it doesn't mean you have to cut her out of your life you can totally do that if that's what you want but it's just removing yourself from it so you don't have to live with her and you're not responsible for her and you're not triggered every day and you're not have you know she might still be saying abusive things or being manipulative and that's only hurting you more so i give you full permission to not be responsible and to leave when as soon as you can now again i know people don't like to hear that but that's the truth we don't have to because we're the better person stay in those relationships even though it's a parent we're not responsible she's responsible we can get her the help that she needs and that help doesn't have to come from us okay let's move on to question number two it says hey kati i want to know how npd or narcissistic personality disorder starts like does it start small as a child and build up or is it just who they are in general i hope this makes sense i'm just very curious thank you so much for being amazing of course of course i'm so glad that the podcasts and the videos are helpful that's a great question now narcissistic personality disorder for the most part is and this isn't 100 but this is like 90 of the time is born out of trauma now i think the thing that's important to remember about npd is that the people with it put up this fake facade of a tough strong uh very successful or important person all as a means to protect themselves from getting wounded again now i don't say that to you know cause you to feel bad for them or whatever because they're still fully responsible for every action that they take but that's kind of where it comes from so for most people with npd it would start in childhood with some childhood abuse whether that's uh neglect or physical or sexual abuse or all of the above emotional abuse could be any number of things it usually starts then and children try to they can start by like lying and at school to pretend that their life is better than it is or they can in you know insist on being around only people who are like more important than them they see them as like you know the the popular people or like if they think they're famous at all or if someone's doing really good or making a lot of money they'll want to spend time with those people we kind of see that develop in children as they go through school and things like that and also like a lot of lying and manipulation but it cannot be diagnosed or technically they don't diagnose personality disorders which i wish there's another term for that but either way the they don't diagnose those until we're 18 because some of that behavior can just be through our own emotional development right when we're kids we don't always have all the tools we i mean i was probably a jerk when i was a kid trying to figure myself out and figure out the world navigating friendships and new relationships and some things can look and like it's one thing when it's really not so it can't be diagnosed until 18 however i have never heard of or had an npd patient who didn't have things happen in childhood that slowly led up into getting a diagnosis when they were an adult now an interesting thing about npd and honestly i i don't know how limited the research is i'd have to do like a really deep dive but i do know that most people with npd do not go to therapy that's not to say that they will never it's just not always something that they're going to be interested in because if you remember npd comes along with this facade to protect us and that facade believes that everybody else is to blame that we're doing everything perfectly and to even admit that something's wrong with us could be devastating and so we might not feel strong enough to actually go and see someone however people with mpd do sometimes find themselves in couples counseling or family counseling and they only show up usually for a short period of time because they believe that someone else is to blame and they're ready and they're there to finger point to be like you're the one and you did this and they don't they tend to struggle to apologize they usually aren't able to apologize and again i don't want to throw all people in that bucket because there are people with mpd out there who are acutely aware and working through it and doing their best in therapy to improve but that's not always the case that's actually like more rare and so the research around it is a little bit tricky because it's not like they want they don't seek out help and if you told someone who has mpd that they do have it they'd be like whatever you know or they'd be like you have it they'd like gaslight i think you're remembering that wrong that's not what happened um so yeah it usually starts in their in childhood and it's like a protective mechanism starts out with like you know lying manipulation things like that wanting to hang out with only certain kinds of people because they view themselves in a certain kind of way um yeah okay i hope that that explains that a little bit and i have a whole video about narcissis i have many videos but i have a old video just running through the diagnostic criteria if you want that breakdown of like elevated sense of self and you know all of the symptoms that it can come along with it if you're wanting that i have that video you can go check that out but let's move on to question number three this question says hey katie recently i've worried that i have narcissistic tendencies and i forgot to mention at the beginning of this podcast that all of the well not all but a majority of the questions are around narcissism because that was the topic that we're gonna discuss today um every four weeks or so i will ask i'll prompt you for questions about a specific issue like i think we have one coming up about ocd this one's about narcissism we've done some on like eating disorders and trauma and so most of the time we're going to do just random questions but every month we'll do one that is more catered around a specific topic okay back to question number three recently i've worried that i have narcissistic tendencies this would be a nightmare for me because the last thing i want to do is hurt people the way that i've been hurt i talked to my therapist about it and she said narcissists don't worry that they're narcissists that's exactly my thought and we'll get into that so there's no way i have npd is this true i know that therapists won't always tell someone when they have mpd so is she lying or am i being entirely too self-critical or maybe even paranoid about this i have complex ptsd and some mild quiet borderline tendencies if that helps i have fear of abandonment difficulty regulating emotions dissociation lifelong passive suicidal ideation i can trace any narcissistic tendencies back to fear of abandonment i can be defensive brag heavily on myself etc so is this really just my borderline traits how do i go about differentiating the two this is a great question and i should probably do a video like npd versus borderline and maybe i have i don't think i've done that but anyways um people who have narcissist like npd do not worry about having it the thing that is so difficult for most of us to understand is people with antisocial personality disorder people who are sociopaths and people with npd lack empathy now empathy is the ability to feel for someone else it's like when i watch somebody trip and fall if they hurt themselves you know like watching the news and watching someone get hurt you're like oh oh no and like oh my you feel for them you feel bad for them you're worried about them are they okay i hope they got to the hospital that's a normal human response most people have empathy for others we you know sometimes we'll like let someone go first you go first or we'll help a person in or out of their car if they're you know older having difficulty getting you know we assist because we care because we feel for them and we want to be there for them people with npd and anti-social personality disorder don't have that and i know it's hard to imagine what that would be like but it's like essentially like you could watch someone get you know let's say they're i don't know watching a baseball game they get hit with a baseball because they're not paying attention there's no like oh you're like should have been paying attention like you don't have any thoughts about it you don't think what it would be like for them you don't feel for them there's no worry or concern you don't have those things you only worry about yours truly about yourself and so the fact that you're even concerned proves you don't have it and that's why because that lack of empathy is a huge component of npd now complex ptsd and borderline have a lot of similar qualities but again you your fear of abandonment is the biggest symptom and you get defensive or brag on yourself because you want to prove that you're worthy of love that's very different and a person with mpd isn't bragging or getting defensive to prove they're worthy of love they're doing it because they wholeheartedly believe that they're better than you and they have this elevated sense of self they're like i'm so much better and i'm going to tell you all the ways that i'm better you essentially are doing it because you're like i am worthy of this relationship and i want to prove to you why and how and you can see how that is a is a huge difference in the motivation and so if you're ever concerned like oh i have some symptoms always talk to a mental health professional that's why self-diagnosis isn't great it does have its benefits because then we can have an idea for what we're looking for in a therapist what kind of specialty we might want them to have or what kind of traits or mental illness we think we're struggling with it can be great for that however you know we do need to see a professional to ensure that we're not misdiagnosing ourselves because you don't have npd like your therapist said it doesn't sound like that at all to me it sounds like you know more complex ptsd or borderline type stuff because your motivator is about wanting to keep those relationships not about proving how good you are because you already know you're so good you know what i mean okay now there was a comment on this says this is me too i often spiral into this way of thinking in it and i am horrible to those around me who are trying their best to put up with me i feel i'm a vulnerable narcissist i'm so fearful of rejection that i hesitate when in a group and worry that i come across as selfish even though i feel the opposite is true i worry that i'll be taken advantage of and so i hang back and become resentful of others who develop friendships i don't have any close friends as i struggle with splitting and black and white thinking and i push them away this sounds a lot like borderline i don't believe a vulnerable narcissist is a thing i think that's bpd um okay i struggle with splitting black and white thinking and push them away by thinking i'm too much of a burden to them in context i experienced childhood sexual abuse and childhood emotional neglect and my family split up when i was 13. i'm still recovering from all this my question is how might these experiences shape a person to become a narcissist or not and what might help break those thought patterns when triggered as i struggle with gaslighting myself in these situations thank you so much katie of course um again that does not sound like npd at all it sounds like borderline personality disorder or bpd and the best way to break these thought patterns is tru truly there's so many techniques in dbt or dialectical behavior therapy um acknowledging the thoughts that you're having and kind of how they spiral is going to be helpful it's kind of that mindfulness component of dbt where you just become more aware of like the conversation you're having with yourself how that feels in your body and what we're really trying to do is get to know ourselves better in our emotional response so that we create space to make a better decision in dbt we call it like wise mind versus emotion mind when we're an emotional mind we can be impulsive we do that splitting that black and white thinking all or nothing we do that all like ah we act really quickly but when we're in our wise mind we can take a beat we can consider outcomes we can consider how we want to respond versus react we can breathe and then we make a good decision and we're able to communicate a want or a need or express a concern or an upset and move forward and so i really encourage you to dig into i have um if you don't have a therapist in your area that does dbt there are some workbooks that i have in my amazon shop you can just go to amazon.com forward slash shop forward slash kati morton and the workbooks are in there you can go through those with your therapist or join a group online or something like that but i think it can be really beneficial for you to find some tools and techniques to better understand how we're feeling before we take any action and just know that it's going to be a process it's not perfection we might know how to to do it and it still will take us a while but like to not be impulsive does that make sense it's like even though we know better at the beginning we still could lash out do that black and white or splitting behavior we can still do that and it's just a new muscle we're building so stick with it it's not going to be perfect but we'll get there okay let's move on to question number four this question says hi katie i'm not sure if this is on topic but i often wonder if narcissists and sociopaths are worthy of love and if they are why my therapist says everyone is worthy of love regardless of how difficult they are but if this is the case then people who do terrible things to others are also worthy of love is this true this is an interesting this is going to be just my opinion okay because this is like not a question about psychology per se or research or diagnoses this is more about like what do i think and i do not believe that people who harm other people are worthy of love unless they you know repent so to speak like apologize which usually they're not capable of doing but apologize make amends and work to be better it's like uh relationships we can have with people like let's say we have a narcissist in our family or something now they if they work to be better and they behaviorally are showing us change and they're not doing the things that were so upsetting for us anymore then they're worthy of love they're trying to be better they've apologized they're doing better they're showing you through action not just words that they're making positive change and that's okay then they're worthy of having that relationship and they you know if you feel okay to offer it to them because again if they've already hurt us we don't have to give people a ton of chances because they don't we don't have to allow people to continue to hurt us you know what i mean and so overall i don't think we can say like oh these people aren't worthy of love people who harm others feel no remorse and can't apologize are not worthy of relationships period it's not really the love factor it's more like relationships like they don't deserve to have people around them they don't deserve to have someone that can pick them up from the airport because they're kind of an asshole and not kind of they're actually pretty damaging and abusive and their life shows this usually people who are active sociopaths or narcissists never seek help in their wake are a ton of people with trauma and they always are talking about the they're always the victim they're blaming others they're talking about how much people have wronged them they're always in the right people are so disrespectful they can't get over how stupid they are blah blah blah blah blah never admitting that the only thing all those relationships have in common is them and so those people don't deserve real relationships because they they aren't capable of having them and i think that's the key is that people who are narcissists and sociopaths who aren't trying to better themselves because i have to believe i think it's the therapist to me maybe that's what your therapist meant is that i have to believe that everyone has a choice they can make to try to be better everybody but not everybody makes that choice and not everybody's even capable of having relationships and therefore you know the love wouldn't come because they would have no relationships does that make sense so i think your therapist is kind of a pollyannish response but they're probably doing it so that because we're trained to not pass judgment right that's like being a therapist means we don't judge anybody we don't make any definitive statements about things like that everybody's accepted and worthy of therapy and we want you to feel like everything's okay and you can talk about anything and that's really important because we need to feel that in order to for therapy to be effective however in this case i think it shouldn't have been applied here and i feel like it's more about the the capability of those people to even have a relationship because in order to be worthy not even worthy of love but to have love and be able to give love and receive love you have to have a relationship and i personally don't think the people who aren't working on themselves and people who harm others i don't think they're capable of relationships therefore they wouldn't be giving any love and they wouldn't be getting any love okay i'd love to hear your thoughts it's kind of a it's really interesting question to think about and i was reading some of the comments below it and i agreed with a lot of what people said it's just interesting and so yeah i don't i mean the worthiness is an interesting word right because is everybody worthy of love from they could be and then slowly through life again they're not capable and they're really abusive and therefore they're not they can't have relationships so there won't be any love but i guess you could say all humans are worthy of love but then they can take action and do things that makes it so they won't ever have it i don't know yeah but i'd love to hear your thoughts too let's move on to question number five this question says what's the difference between someone with npd and someone with narcissistic traits great question how can you differentiate between these two kinds of people it all comes down to be truthful to diagnostic criteria and when it comes to npd to be diagnosed with it because it's a personality disorder it has to happen for you know i think it's like six months let me pull this up um but we have to meet this criteria and so if we don't meet the criteria but we have some of it then that would be someone with narcissistic traits so it's all going back to this list of criteria like the their common traits of mpd are having an inflative inflated sense of self like self-importance entitlement needing constant admiration expecting special treatment from others exaggerating achievements and talents reacting negatively to criticism being preoccupied with fantasies about power success and beauty you know grandiosity lack of lack of empathy yes disregard for others feelings which is lack of empathy so if we check all the boxes that we need to in the dsm or in the icd-11 those are both just kind of diagnostic manuals and things that we use either to diagnose or to access treatment through healthcare systems that's really what we go off of if you meet all the criteria then you would have a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder however let's say you have a grandiose sense of self and you struggle to take criticism you could have narcissistic traits without having full-blown narcissism because you don't quite meet that criteria does that make sense it'd be like um if i uh what's another good example like borderline this happens a lot this happens a lot with personality disorders because there's such a long list of symptoms and criterion and it has to happen for a certain amount of time and we just don't always meet that so a lot of my patients with borderline tendencies or traits or whatever you want to call it they'll have like a fear of abandonment but nothing else and so it might be they have a bpd trait but it's probably more attachment based right and so people with npd traits could be like oh well they have some of these traits but i think it's more attached to like a trauma response right because we don't have full-blown npd and so that's how you really differentiate and everybody's going to be different some people might meet you know these three symptoms other people might meet these other three it's more about whether or not you meet the full criteria for the diagnosis okay another person comments says i'm wondering this also my parents have traits but i'm not sure if it's actually npd i actually think it's more likely that they have bpd or bipolar with some traits so my add-on is what would family dynamics look like in a house with parents who have npd versus narcissistic traits especially as a child it depends i could tell you what the family dynamics would look like in a home when you're parent it's usually one parent who has mpd it's very i mean i guess it's not very rare but i would it people with narcissism usually seek out people who are caregivers uh super sensitive people really empathic people who feel for others um they might be able it'd be more likely for someone with npd to marry someone who has depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder a different type of mental illness because two narcissists would essentially like try to one-up each other and manipulate each other it'd just be you see how like it doesn't quite fit together but uh you could have parents that are both have bipolar disorder or a borderline personality disorder those you would still be attracted to each other and it wouldn't be like this clash right but when you grow up in a home where one parent has npd it would mean that you're you're always it's essentially like emotional neglect would be huge for you so you probably really hate conflict because it was probably overwhelming in your home and because people with mpd can either be outwardly conflictual meaning like loud and fighting or they can be extremely and this is really common for like covert narcissists extremely passive aggressive and a lot of the abuse that you would have sustained would have been through those types of terms and and manipulations meaning you're probably made to feel really stupid and small and not important and the you know they probably didn't ever really show you affection or emotional support it was more about how it affected them and they would turn around like let's say you came home from school crying a parent with narcissism would struggle to show up for you because they don't have empathy for your situation they would talk about their day and they could say something like uh keep it down you know your mom's had a bad day or your dad's having a tough time i can't believe you know you'd do this to me so it's all about them and i can't believe you would do this and you know and so people the children that come out of that tend to be highly sensitive it's almost like it creates the antithesis of npd super empathic super sensitive um always feel like we're walking on eggshells because we grew up walking on eggshells struggle to identify how we're really feeling difficulties with conflict a really difficult time with conflict resolution we're probably incredibly patient because again our needs were put last um yeah that's just a few things i think the overall our home and the dynamics would have felt very disregulating very unpredictable and not at all like a secure foundation we would feel like we just never knew we were coming home to we might prob might have not liked to come home very often wanted to be out of the house as long as possible probably until the sun came down and we knew we'd get in trouble so we'd come back so we wouldn't get in trouble but yeah it makes for a very difficult upbringing and it's again it's that emotional neglect that really we feel but again it could be i don't want anybody to think that people with npd can't be outwardly like physically or sexually abusive or emotionally abused so the emotional abuse is probably the biggest because remember the fact that npd comes along with um gas lighting and manipulation and stuff like that so that can definitely be something that we will struggle with as a child with that let's move on to question number six and question number six says moin everyone mine if anybody doesn't know moin is something when sean and i went to brim in germany that's how people say like good morning it's a very northern german thing i guess um i argue a lot so back into the question sorry i argue a lot with people about if npd is treatable or not since bpd was deemed untreatable for a long time i believe that every disorder is treatable to some degree or at least and for the right people yes what do you think about the treatment of npd can it work or is it pointless or even harmful because they learn what behaviors hurt others most and how to manipulate better also if you think it is untreatable what would you do if someone comes to you or another therapist to get help with their npd could you get this covered by insurance sorry i know this is a lot but npd is really fascinating and most the time it's talked about how to deal with a person with npd or how to heal from the behavior but not how to manage or treat it you're right we don't talk enough about treatment for npd and the truth about narcissism it would be that we'd have to do trauma treatment and it all i guess all therapeutic treatment hinges on this but it but especially with npd it hinges on our desire to be better and to feel better and to you know move forward and process through things and so if someone with npd is having a tough time and because they usually are but they pretend that they're not it's like this big fake facade if they finally realize like hey i've lost everything i've got to do something better and they want better because i again i believe people can change and if they want to that would be the work would probably be processing some childhood trauma because mpd is primarily born out of it now i don't think that they would learn how to manipulate others better or you know learn how to honestly be like a quote unquote better narcissist i think it'd be more about them and understanding their responses right because if we're putting up this facade to protect ourselves from other people but that facade or that fake shell is actually harmful if we can heal that inner soft you know inner child really of us or the person that was traumatized if we can heal that then we probably won't need that facade anymore because mpd is kind of like a coping skill for trauma in a lot of ways where we use it as a protective mechanism but that protection is very abusive but if we don't need it anymore because we've healed from that trauma then we can not have it does that make sense and so i do believe it's treatable and i think a lot of times when it comes to personality disorders because they're more it's the reason they call them personality disorders because they're more like what's the word it's almost like intrinsic to who we are or more palpable in our life because it like affects more areas of our life if that makes sense personality disorders tend to do that so in order for us to overcome them and to manage them better it's gonna take more like thorough work now they're all treatable bpd npd we can get treated and we can be better but it all hinges on us wanting to do that and being able to do that work because it's going to be really difficult and really painful and scary probably for someone with npd to finally admit that they were traumatized and that they feel badly because that facade is like i'm the best i'm the best of the best and you've never seen anybody as good as me right i have such an elevated sense of self and and elevated importance but again that i think it is treatable and i think if someone came to me and wanted to get better i was like i think i'm a narcissist i need to i need to figure this out i would dig in to find out like why it exists just like we do with uh borderline borderline's also born out of trauma and and it can be you know attachment stuff as well because that fear of abandonment so i had to figure out where it came from and heal that and then i think that would be then those symptoms no longer serve a purpose right the splitting of bpd the manipulation of a narcissist or the abusive behavior of either um they don't serve a purpose anymore and so we won't be using them anymore and they think that it's finding ways to like regulate our emotions express discontent it's all the therapy stuff but at the beginning it's figuring out what purpose is served in healing that does that make sense i hope i answered all the questions um it is treatable could you get it covered by insurance of course if you meet a diagnostic criteria i would assume it's covered i know there are some restrictions especially with bpd there are restrictions around like how long the treatment can go on and things like that and then some some insurances require you join a bpd group but yes all in all i believe it would be covered let's move on to question number seven and it says hi katie i was wondering how you suggest dealing with the pain of cutting off a close family member about six months ago i cut off my sister because since our dad died over three years ago she's been increasingly abusive and controlling i'm so sorry the problem is she means the world to me we went through heck together dealing with my dad and we kept each other together when she's not um treating me like a human garbage can she's actually one of my favorite people in the world what do you suggest thank you a lot of things okay so first of all sometimes we have to cut family members off i know people have a tough time with this and rightfully so right they're family and we have a lot of societal beliefs around what that means but none no one should continue in an abusive relationship when the other person refuses to make to change or to try to be better now there's a huge i believe that we should give people if it's safe an opportunity to change meaning we should communicate our discontent we should say you know i understand i've been difficult this xyz i'm trying to be better i need you to acknowledge that you've done this that or the other and i don't like that behavior i can't be in a relationship with someone who's abusive to me now a person who's wanting to improve should apologize and should try to make it better and if there are other things that they're upset with you about they should feel free to communicate that and you should be able to you know again it's that push pull give and take of relationships you should be able to figure that out that being said sometimes it's not safe or sometimes we've tried that and they are not able i said like people aren't always capable like i said earlier some people with narcissistic personality disorder uh and antisocial personalities aren't capable of having relationships and so at that point we have to cut them off to protect ourselves essentially we can't set ourselves on fire to keep someone else warm so we have to walk away and that walking away is going to be difficult but i want you there's a couple of things first of all getting therapeutic support is going to be key we're going to need to be able to talk to someone about what we're going through because we're going to grieve losing a relationship especially when you said she's like one of your favorite people in the world and you were super close that's important that's a big relationship we're gonna have to grieve that loss we've lost that person the person that we thought she was or the person that we we thought we were in a relationship with with doesn't exist anymore and that's really hard and so i want you to know it's okay to feel sad it's okay to feel angry it's okay to grieve and let yourself be in it and then after like give yourself time i do encourage you to try to find another friendship maybe you have another friend that's already close with you make time to see that person because the one thing i will tell you about when we when we cut people out of our lives and we end relationships aside from the intense grieving it's that void that friendship void that space that your sister filled we're going to need someone not they're not going to fill it the same but we're going to need to have someone else to talk to we're going to need to have other supports and other people who love us and who we love and making time for that is gonna be really important and so that's really my encouragement for you is acknowledging you know letting it happen acknowledging what you're gonna miss about her but while also recognizing the reasons it might help to even write down the reasons that you had to end the relationship because people can be manipulative and try to get back on our life even though they're still just as abusive or we can second-guess ourselves and like gaslight ourselves into thinking oh i remembered it wrong i'm being too harsh well we're going to need that list just remind us hey remember she said this she did this it was really hurtful we tried to talk to her she wouldn't listen we told her that was hurtful she laughed or whatever we're gonna need to remember that and so i'd encourage you to write that down which i know sounds shitty but to remind you of why you made that positive choice for yourself it's okay to feel sad grieve as long as you need to and then make sure you're making time for your other more healthy relationships because something i do find about cutting out family in particular is that we can struggle to still see good in the world we can think like everybody's bad because those are like foundational people that have been in our life for a long time and so i want you to make time for those other relationships to just remind you that there are good people out there people we can be in relationships with people that we love and who love us okay i'm really proud of you for cutting her off i'm proud of you for sticking up for yourself and knowing that you do deserve to have happy healthy relationships okay final question question number eight says hey kati i'm hoping you can give us an overview of what npd actually is i notice that a lot of people will say that someone in their life actually a parent is a narcissist while i know the definition of the word i don't really understand npd clinically what's the difference if there is one between being a narcissist and having npd there isn't a difference is npd easy to identify and diagnose yes are there any stats about how common it is or any basic info would be great okay so i have the symptoms of narcissism let's go through that first now when someone has narcissistic personality disorder we call them narcissists there is no difference although i do believe that people misuse those words and if someone has like one maybe someone gasled us one time because they truly remembered it differently right people can have different recollections of the same event people can be like i was gaslit that person's a narcissist and it's really not that simple that's like one small component of what makes up a narcissist okay now symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and this is from the dsm and i'm pulling it from the mayo clinic's website so hopefully that you know that gives it credibility right so people with this disorder can have an exaggerated sense of self or self-importance they think they're like a real big deal when maybe they're not have a sense of entitlement and require constant or excessive admiration now this can look like when people uh demand to be apologized to or can't understand why they didn't get that seat that they wanted at that place or that wedding they were put in the back and that's so rude they think that they're always the best they're entitled to being they're the most important and they're entitled to everyone knowing that does that make sense entitled to the better things in life even if it like you know they're not they can also expect to be recognized as superior even if they don't have any like achievements or things to actually warrant that they believe that that should be recognized i was the best at this job everybody else was just stupid and and i can't believe i didn't win that award right they expect it they will exaggerate their achievements and talents often when they're recalling events at work or school they'll say that they're like way better and then when you actually would see it's like not the truth um they can be preoccupied with fantasies about success power brilliance beauty or the perfect mate spend a lot of time talking about you know all of that stuff they believe that they're superior and can only associate with equally special people you'll see this happen when you get kind of like discarded by a narcissist because they found someone they think is more important or more valuable or superior they can like only associate with people that they think make more money or whatever they can also monopolize conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior they put down the put downs are intense with someone who has npd they'll like the it's almost kind of passive aggression but it's just a lot of like snide comments like oh you're not even like if you said oh i got this new job or something like well you're not really using your degree right now are you they'll make some comment like putting you down they'll expect special favors and unquestioning compliance now that's where they will not be able to apologize and they'll expect you to go along and comply with whatever they think you should do to like make amends with them or to warrant being able to go on this trip with them or do this thing or be around them and they don't want you to like question it you just have to do what they want even though they obviously never do anything that other people want they take advantage of others to get what they want that's kind of part of that they have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others that's that lack of empathy so they can't understand that you would need something they don't even attempt to try to understand they think that it's only their needs that exist okay and they'll be envious of others and believe that others are envious of them i find narcissists do a lot of projecting meaning when they feel inferior they like project that you feel in fear and that you're envious of them or like if if they think about cheating they automatically assume their partner's cheating and so it's kind of this like this like uh projection of their own experience they can behave in arrogant or haughty ways coming across as conceited boastful or pretentious that's the one people usually think of when they talk about narcissism is like oh they were just so full of themselves they're a narcissist you can tell there's a lot more to it they can insist on having the best of everything for instance the best car or the best office like i told you like the best seats at a concert or an event they believe they're the most important and they they deserve the best of everything and it says at the same time people with narcissistic personality disorder have trouble handling anything they perceive as criticism and they can become impatient or angry when they don't receive special treatment they'll lash out and this is when you start to see like the the really abusive side of a narcissist they can do these are like a lot of the terms people will talk about when they say like oh they sent their flying monkeys like narcissists often have people in the waiting to like shit talk other people to put them down because they didn't get what they wanted and so this could be their partner or spouse this could be like casual friends at school or work again people with mpd don't usually have like long-term relationships they tend to burn bridges all the time so these people who they get to shit talk others are just the people of the moment and they tend to only have these people around for a short period of time maybe like a year at the most they also have significant interpersonal problems and feel easily slided yeah their laundry list of things that have happened or things they're upset about is like the longest list of ever you've ever seen and their relationships are always messed up because they aren't capable of having them they react with rage or contempt and try to belittle the other person who makes themselves appear superior so this can happen a lot at work someone who has npd at work if they have a boss or someone got promoted over them they will they could not shit talk or be more upset or angry at this person than like the manipulation the lying the the way that they will talk about this person i can't even express it to you how intense it will can get because they have to put them down because they feel they made them feel inferior and how dare they try to scratch away at this fake facade right i'm so vulnerable underneath and they they rage also just the amount of like nasty comments texts calls shit talking in person behind their back that they can just like completely ruin situations ruin their life and their relationships with this raging contempt that they have they have they have difficulty regulating emotions and behavior that can be super impulsive and like burn it down like send horrible texts and emails say horrible things to people that they can't take back and essentially you know ruin their relationships they experience major problems dealing with stress and adapting to change they feel depressed a lot and moody because they fall short of perfection so that's the key to like the underpinnings of narcissism is that we're really soft and squishy underneath and so depression is almost always common in someone's npd because they they do realize like a little bit that they aren't perfect and they can never you know get that and they're like always striving for it yet all the time being impatient angry rage-filled and contentful burning things down ruining their relationships and it's almost like they're their own worst enemy and so depression is incredibly common and then it's have see the finals have secrets of secret feelings again they don't want anybody to know and they probably struggle to even admit it to themselves like stuff it down secret feelings of insecurity shame vulnerability and humiliation now that's obviously just i'm running through quickly like how it can show up and what it can feel like i hope that kind of gives you an idea of what it is because it's not just egotistical people it's people who feel so fragile and wounded underneath but refuse to acknowledge and heal that and instead take it out on everyone else and so that's what kind of all those symptoms are now um okay the difference between narcissists and having amputee there's no difference and is mpd easy to identify and diagnose yes and the reason for this is well i i say it as a therapist i think regular people may not notice it right away but they will when they first whatever the first time is that they trigger them because the overreaction of raging contempt that we can get from someone with npd is shocking to the regular person and usually will end relationships like like i said people with mpd will leave a bunch of abused and traumatized people in their wake because we're shocked we thought they were nice we thought they were great you were so excited and fun to be around and then boom like burn it down like scorched earth and so that makes it easy for regular people to identify not necessarily know that they have mpd but be like oh that person that's not good i can't be in a relationship with that person right we're like oh my god there's they're so difficult so dysregulated so so angry so scary and so people will usually like want to get away from them other than people who are super empathic they're like i can fix them i i feel for them that must been really hard and those are the ones we can get caught in that cycle with them and the final portion of this question says are there any stats about how common it is and yes i had to look it up because i don't i don't know and there are varying statistics as i don't know if i've ever talked about this but statistics can vary depending on how you're polling and where you're getting your numbers from but according to the cleveland clinic they estimate up to five percent of people have narcissism they say it's a little bit more common in men than in women but i think they said women's around 4.8 percent and men's around 7 so really it's you know that's a rough estimate about how many people and if anybody doesn't know the amount of people in the world that they think have schizophrenia is one percent so this is five percent so it's even more common and i the world population let me look that up because i'm not even sure what the what that would be um what they roughly think i think is it through 30 oh 7.75 billion people in the world so five percent of that is huge and i know that that can sound really shocking but it's a large number but i think people talk about certain things a lot because people have narcissistic tendencies like they have a couple symptoms or they've done something that was hurtful and people like they must be a narcissist which is it's fine i'm not saying that people aren't but we don't always know we can't diagnose people in our life like that even as a therapist i can't diagnose people in my life because i'm not seeing them as a therapist in that capacity and asking for histories of things now if i've known someone like my whole entire life i might be able to with some kind of guesstimation stay like oh i think they do have some anxiety disorders but again that's out of that's not they're not in my office that's not something that i do on the regular it's exhausting to have your therapist hat on all the time but i just want you know that there is a high number of people in the world who have npd i hope that that was helpful those are all very interesting questions it was it was fun to do a little research to look up statistics and to get the symptoms out for you all and i hope that you found it really helpful educational and interesting have a wonderful wonderful rest of the week again thank you so much for sharing this podcast and for sending in your questions and for all the reviews i will see you soon bye [Music]

Channel: AKA & OTDM Podcasts

Views: 6,299

Keywords: kati morton

Id: lRASSaMEWPc

Length: 56min 29sec (3389 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 08 2022